A fair rate?

I realise this is a bit of a loaded question, so I will try to be quite specific.

For those of you that use the commercial job offering/searching part of the forum, what is a fair rate for a 3D modeller, and what sort of things should I be looking for from such a modeller, e.g. rigging, texturing, animating etc.? (let's assume 12 low poly characters (that will need texturing and rigging at least) for a commercial game, for the sake of keeping the scope fixed).

Basically, I am almost at the point where I am looking to switch out placeholder models for the real thing, and have a particular theme in mind, but I wanted to get a feel for what I will be paying for a set of character models so that I can budget for it. I am not after offers to do the work at this point, so thought the general forum would be a good place to ask.

Do you generally pay hourly, and have a contract to establish the length of time expected? Fixed rate, or time based? As it's a passion project, there's not a huge budget for it, but I realise the importance of actually paying creatives for their time, and want it to be both affordable and fair - whether or not that's a pipe-dream I don't know

Thanks!

 

I think the following video might answer a few of these questions, even though it comes from a different perspective.

He is telling how he works together with modellers that create those assets he is selling in the asset store, how he is paying them, what worked best for him, etc...

 

I can provide a rough estimate/quote - If you can provide a poly count range (between 1000-2500 polygons each) for all the characters, the size of the textures desired, if the textures will be pbr or not, if you want sculpts to derive normal maps from or not (this adds to time to completion), if the rigging is standard humanoid or creatures with unique bone structures, and provide some images of the type/quality of similar characters from other games.

Im not offering my services - only providing an approximate quote range. Im an animator located in the US.
I usually request a fixed rate agreement, with milestone payments.
Fixed rate is fair to both client and contractor. The client should not be penalized, having to pay more if the contractor works slow and methodical, and the contractor should not be paid less for working fast and effecient.

For milestone payments If I was creating one regular poly model I would request milestone payments after modeling is complete, after textures are complete and final payment after rigging is complete.

The rate quote and milestone payments should all be worked out and agreed upon in a signed contract agreement.

 

Thanks, yeah I watched that, which is what got me thinking. The talk is quite revenue oriented, but it did give some insight into the relationship between the asset creator and speaker (whether it's a good way to maintain that relationship, I'm unsure).

 

Thanks for all of this - still working at finalising the style, so it's a bit hard to define it exactly with examples, but this level of toony: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/67948 is a good start, although these are too low poly. Perhaps a good example of style is Dungeon Keeper (somewhere between the new mobile version, and DK2). Detail would be slightly higher than the modern version as camera would be closer to model.

So I guess 1000-1500 polys is about right. Textures would be small - I have used 12 characters as an example, but unsure about total quantity, and I don't think a full 1024x1024 per model is going work as it will be for mobile devices. PC isn't a consideration at this stage. Characters would all fit into the regular rig mapping for mechanim, and I think there are enough animations to service my needs on the asset store, so it would just require basic rigging, and I can hook characters to a mechanim animator.

I don't know what difference PBR makes for textures - but I would imagine a lot of the depth will be from normal maps, and the toony style would mean no need for the world interacting with the appearance of the character, so PBR isn't required, but with the Unity 5 standard shader(s) does PBR make much of a difference for textures, or is it just a matter of more maps?

Thanks again for your detailed response!

 

Roughly - you can expect quotes to come in at around 100-350 per model to begin with. Expecting first and second models to cost a little more, then other models probably costing less, because elements of the first couple models will be re-usable and won't take as long to complete. Also the first rig will probably do fine for all the characters, so only minor editing to the rig and skinning will be needed.
Also you can expect more complex characters (character with extra cloth parts, dangle-y pieces, and extravagant costuming) to cost more to create - because they will take longer to create, and skin.

Any quotes you get that are under the lower estimate I gave - I would dismiss straight away. These quotes would most likely be from in-experienced artists attempting to low ball the quote to land the job.

 

Good quality character or environment modelers/texture artists will charge about $35 per hour on average (In the US). Could be a bit less or a bit more depending on the experience of the artist. From my experience (as an example) a character modeled and textured could run about $350-$500 for those aspects. You would add hours of course for rigging, binding and animation.